Schoolgirl Sian Kingi’s murderer Barrie Watts has parole bid rejected

The man who tortured, raped and murdered Sunshine Coast schoolgirl Sian Kingi in the late 1980s has had his bid for parole rejected.

Schoolgirl Sian Kingi’s murderer Barrie Watts has had his parole bid rejected after a lengthy public appeal to keep him locked away.

The Courier-Mail understands Sian’s family was told today after a decision from Queensland’s parole board.

Barrie John Watts.

Sian was abducted by Watts and his de facto Valmae Beck on November 27, 1987.

The 12-year-old Sunshine Coast schoolgirl had stopped at the shops with her mother Lynda on the way home from school.

Sian left to ride her bike the short distance home while her mother drove.

Watts tortured, raped and murdered the schoolgirl and dumped her body in bushland, 15km from her Noosa home.

Watts’ parole application this year outraged the Queensland community, with a petition launched to stop his release.

Sunshine Coast MP Dan Purdie said the Kingis were relieved by the decision.

“I spoke to the family this morning and they said they wanted me to thank the community for their support and they are more than happy with the result,” he said.

Sian Kingi.

Mr Purdie, who organised a petition on behalf of Sian’s parents, said it was unfortunate the Kingis had to endure nearly a year of not knowing whether the killer would be released from prison.

“I welcome the Parole Board’s decision,” he said.

“The support the family received from Sian’s friends, teachers and our wider community has been overwhelming.

“I also want to thank the 72,000 people who signed our petition. Our collective voices were too loud to ignore.

“It’s a shame the family has had to endure this process for almost 12 months.

“I have made a commitment to the family that I will do everything I possibly can to ensure the government makes good on its announcement to toughen the law so Watts, and monsters like him, never see the light of day again.”

The parole board made a preliminary decision to refuse the parole order on July 16 before publishing its decision this morning.

In June the board deferred its decision while it awaited an additional psychiatric risk assessment by Dr Josephine Sundin, who had assessed Watts in 2015.

In 2015 she found he met sufficient criteria to be labelled a psychopath and met the diagnostic criteria for anti-social personality disorder.

“It also seems highly likely that he meets the diagnostic criteria for sexual sadism,” Dr Sundin found.

In the subsequent report this year Dr Sundin said “both anti-social personality disorder and psychopathy are considered to be lifelong conditions”.

“It is likely that as Mr Watts has aged, that there has been an overall reduction in the severity of his personality disturbance,” Dr Sundin wrote.

“However, he is an in (sic) extraordinarily rare group of individuals who have very high psychopathy scores and long term information on the outcomes of such individuals is hard to obtain.

“In general, the research shows that the recidivism rate in individuals with high psychopathy scores is much higher than individuals with lower psychopathy scores.”

Watts responded to the request by saying: “ I was surprised that Dr Sundin would make a (sic) addendum report without talking to me or via a teleconference or a contact visit. So her report is 5 years old and out of date so she never got to hear anything about the changers (sic) that I have made for the better.”

Dr Sundin said Watts’ pre-parole interview in January also raised flags when in an interview with staff.

“When asked about the sexual offending he said, ‘she was there, it was rape and murder, you don’t just kill people, you rape and murder them, it wasn’t something I’d ever done before but that’s what people did, they raped and murdered’,” the staff member wrote of the interview with Watts.

“He reported that he felt bad for what he had done, it was not in his DNA and he knew he crossed the line … The author notes the prisoner made no comment as to remorse for his actions, rather expressed concern for his own wellbeing and being caught.”

Watts also again claimed Beck was “controlling, manipulative and someone who was a very jealous person”.

Dr Sundin said Watts would not be a suitable person to be safely managed under parole board-imposed high intensity supervision conditions.

The parole board said because of the seriousness of Watts’ offending, his diagnosis of psychopathy and sexual sadism and his limited release plans the board had formed a view that Watts’ risk to the community was “unacceptably high at this time”.

In rejecting his parole bid, the board said it was not satisfied the risk Watts posed to the community could be sufficiently mitigated by any conditions it could impose.

The parole board said Watts’s criminal history demonstrated a consistent pattern of break and enter offences, dishonesty offences and escaping from legal custody, before escalating into violence with assaults, deprivation of liberty, rape and murder.

There were 27 occasions in which he was convicted and sentenced for a total of 58 offences.

Watts has lived in the residential section of Wolston jail since May 2014 and worked in the kitchen.

Watts cannot make another application for at least 12 months.

At his next application, Watts will be subject to the state’s tough new laws which give the president of the Parole Board Queensland the power to make the declaration against the “worst of the worst” murderers stopping them applying for parole for up to 10 years.

New laws have been introduced to stop child killers and people who commit multiple murders from applying for parole for an extra 10 years after their eligibility date.

Even if a declaration is not made by the Parole Board president, a new presumption against parole will come into effect for prisoners who fall into the categories.

It would mean parolees will need to prove to the board that they are not a risk to community safety.

The worst murderers could face multiple 10-year declarations